Mobile devices, such as electronic reader devices, tablets, mobile phones, wearable electronic devices (e.g. watches, smart watches, and electronic eye glasses), and the like, use battery power that needs to be charged on a nearly daily, if not shorter, time period. Photovoltaic cells are being used to supplement battery life and different approaches have been used to incorporate the photovoltaic cells into the structure of the mobile device including the display. In an example approach, semi-transparent photovoltaic cells, which absorb visible light, are deposited on the display. In another approach, opaque photovoltaic layers are segmented around the display in the form of strips or to form apertures between which the light from the display passes.
In general, a display within such mobile devices allows the human eye to sense images and text in the form of visible light. This visible light is delivered to the eye from the display in the form of light emission (light emitting diode (LED) or liquid crystal display (LCD) displays) or light reflection (electrophoretic displays or printed ink/dyes on a substrate like paper).
The approaches described above lead to displays, which suffer from either (1) decreased performance (e.g. low luminance, low resolution, etc), due to light from the display being absorbed or blocked by non-transparent PV materials, or (2) having only a small surface area of photovoltaic material, which for a given cell type, is proportional to the total amount of energy generated.